Makiya

21. Advanced magic for beginners

Dea’n’ha released the wind spell which was moving the cart until now. A slight breeze came from the cart but quickly vanished. This was the concentrated mana dispersing.

The warehouse was kind of huge, but also surprisingly empty. As if it was cleaned through especially for this delivery. Which most probably indeed was the case. The walls were made of concrete bricks, tall about three meters. The depth of the building was about ten meters. It was just about enough for all this gold to be unloaded. 

Dea’n’ha didn’t park the cart inside, but right in front of the warehouse. Usually, Andrey would be surprised at why she did such a stupid thing as it would be easier to unload it if it were parked inside, but now that he knew magic exists and you can manipulate it easily, he didn’t get deceived.

“Okay, so how do you propose we do this?” Dea’n’ha asked, jumping off the cart and walking next to Andrey.

“Hmm… I thought you would be giving the plans and orders?” RIsing an eyebrow, Andrey looked at the sorceress.

“Well, yeah, but you need to develop your creativity so you get better at sorcery” Dea’n’ha explained.

“Hmm… let me think.” I must think of something original. Just plainly lifting the gold and placing it on the ground isn’t really what a sorcerer would do… I ... guess?

“Okay.” Her lovely voice allowed a few second’s time.

“Okay. Firstly, why doesn’t the gold have a stash!?” Andrey facepalmed.

“Sure, that’s a good thing to have in mind.” Dea’n’ha remarked.

“Huh? Oh, right. We can make one, is that on your mind?” 

“Yup!”

“Okay, so firstly we gotta make a stash to put the gold in, after that we have to put the gold in the stash.” Andrey stood there thinking out loud. 

“Let’s start with making the stash.” Dea’n’ha chuckled.

“Why the chuckle?”

“How do you think we’ll do it?”

“Hmm… It sounds like a strange idea, but why not transform the cart into stashes?” the boy suggested.

“Oh! Interesting idea, but that way we will destroy the cart.”

“Then where do we get the wood from? Hmm… Destroy one of the trees from his lawn?”

“No, no. Wait… watch this.”

Dea’n’ha’s tattoos spread across her body and she slowly reached her left hand towards Philius. She whispered

“Велики Филиус нека твоята сила на създателя потече през ръката ми и се влее в съществото, което ще изградя с твоята свята и чиста енергия”

Blue light started glowing at the top of her beautiful hand. A little wind blew into her cloak glorifying her figure in amazing grace. The blue light traveled through the figures of her tattoos turning them from black to bright blue. The spell traveled into her right hand taking a sphere-like shape that as if was burning in blue fire. When the whole light traveled into her right arm she gently crouched and pushed the beautiful fire spell into the ground. Blue light spread throughout the ground within a few meters radius. After it absorbed the whole energy her tattoos returned to normal and the spell visibly entirely entered the ground with her being the conductor of this beautiful energy.

The ground glowing in blue didn’t move and nothing else really happened. Dea’n’ha rose to her feet and stared at the ground.

“Um… what did you say and what did you do?” The boy asked stepping over the blue light trying to see if the ground was in some way different.

“Wait just a few more seconds and you’ll see.” Dea’n’ha said as she pushed Andrey back with a hand on his chest. “We have to move back a bit, we’re in the way.”

“In the way?” The boy asked. In the way of what? Wait… could it be? 

As they moved back the ground gently cracked and a small plant appeared.

“Okay, now I want you to do something for me. It’s a lesson, after all.” Dea’n’ha said with her really gentle voice.

“Sure, what ?”

“The same way you channeled mana to me when you did telepathy. I want you to try and do that, but instead, point it to this little green fella.”

“Interesting. Okay, I’ll try.”

Andrey sat down on the ground and leaned closer to the green plant. Okay, little guy… I’ll try to give you a portion of myself.

Close your eyes… breath slowly… focus on the unseen…

Steadily Andrey managed to see his body’s mana. He pointed his hand over the plant and tried thinking how this blue light, the spiritual energy within him, starts to flow towards his hand. Repeating this thought process the energy slowly traveled towards his hand.

“Careful. This moment is really dangerous. The moment you break the barrier where your mana exists your flesh you could pour it out too rapidly. It’s like piercing a hole in a water container. The water is pressuring it all the time, but the moment you pop a hole in it it starts bursting out.” Dea’n’ha explained as she observed how his mana had reached a peak point before breaking his flesh.

“Okay, steady, steady.” Andrey tried imagining a very small burst of mana coming out his hand and pouring into the plant.

“Try to imagine as if you are slowly extending your very hand. Don’t imagine a literal hole in your body, imagine as if you are extending it through your mana.”

Andrey really slowly managed to have a small amount, like a finger-sized, of mana, pour straight into the plant. It started to glow and constantly started growing. 

“Okay, you’re doing good.” Dea’n’ha praised.

As the tree grew it pushed his hand a bit, making him open his eyes and seeing that it was already tall enough to push it away.

“Wow…” he spoke amazed as he continued pouring his mana in the little tree.

“Okay, now that it has grown it needs more for it to grow at the same pace.”

Andrey imagined a full hand-size stream of mana going out of him. Then he slowly stood up and made a step back as the tree was already growing half his size.

Dea’n’ha lifted both her hands in front of her drawing a circle and putting her fingers against each other, navigating her mana around the tree.

“We have to preserve Mr. Reven’s lawn, so I’ll restrict the form the tree takes this time, but next time you’ll do it.” she explained her actions, though he was so concentrated on the flow of mana that he didn’t really pay much attention to it.

In just a minute the tree grew twenty meters tall and about a meter wide. The most beautiful about it was that all of it was glowing in blue light making quite a beautiful sight in the night.

“Okay, that’s enough.” Dea’n’ha told Andrey and put a hand on his shoulder to make him pay attention.

“I’m left speechless.” The boy put his hand back and made a few more steps back to see the whole tree.

“You did good!” Dea’n’ha applauded and then got to business “Now let’s use some more magic to turn this good boy into a few gold stashes.”

“Wait! What did you say when you cast the spell? In what language was that?” Andrey questioned.

“That was Bulgarian. It’s an ancient language used by the priests of the Axis religion.”

“Bulgarian?! ” the boy exclaimed in surprise. If I’m not mistaking there was such a country in my world!!!

“What did the words mean?”

“Oh great Philius may your power of the creator flow through my hand and flow into the being I will create with your holy and pure energy.” Dea’n’ha recited. “That is the exact meaning of these words.”

“You took power from Philius?”

“Yeah.” she confirmed nodding her head in a sweet joyful way.

“I read somewhere that Philius was god and is praised by the Axis religion, but I thought that was mumbo-jumbo.”

“Honestly, I would feel the same way, coming from a godless world like yours, but look at him.” Dea’n’ha said as she looked at the blue star in the sky.

“It’s beautiful.” The boy noted.

“Yup. I guess that the star really lives as it hears my prayers and grants me the powers I am in need of.”

“What is the limit? How do you access him? Does he speak back?!” Andrey threw quick questions.

“Chill! One must be of a pure heart and clear intent or he might punish you. His energy is pure and if you have evil in you it would purge it away, you with it… probably.”

“Ah! So there is a requirement.”

“You also need to know the language, or at least the words. You’re a no-go for this. Well, at least for now.”

“And this monster in me… You know, I talked to it, I think.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, back when I was SLEEPING” Andrey exclaimed in a funny voice “I was in that world with the black hands monster. Just that… it wasn’t the monster there, but there was me. I talked to a person who looked and sounded exactly like me. The world was broken and physics worked in a funny way.”

“Ah, I thought that was just an expression. I didn’t expect you were in another world.”

“Yeah… many things seem to have awakened in me. But let’s finish this job first and we’ll talk later. I’m kind of tired, I’d love to get some sleep.”

“Okay, Andrey. Sure thing.”

“Let me try something.” He said as he stepped forward and pointed his hand at the tree with his fingers pointing straight forward.

Imagine the mana is flowing sharply forward. Just a slight amount of it.

Small amounts of mana caused a bit of wind just in front of his fingers.

Now let’s try to imagine it as thin as possible. I’m going to use this thin line to cut through the tree. I just gotta put a liiitle more force behind it. A sharp thin line of mana, powered by wind behind it. Wind magic? I guess so.

Dea’n’ha rose an eyebrow and leaned in front of Andrey’s face to see what he’s doing.

She saw his eyes extremely concentrated on his hand. A little stream of wind cleared the hair from Andrey’s face lifting it upwards. Blue light became visible on the tip of his fingers.

Suddenly a bursting cutting sound was heard and a thin wind wave with the size of his hand pierced through the whole tree… and the warehouse behind it.

“N..No!” Dea’n’ha facepalmed as she saw the damaged warehouse. Furthermore, the tree just started to fall in the direction of the old geezer’s house. “No, no, no!” Andrey started to run back as if to catch it, not realizing he can’t really catch a twenty meters tree.

Dea’n’ha laughed as she quickly managed to take control of the falling tree and stopping it mid-air with her incredible control of magic. 

“Nice job cutting down the warehouse!” she laughed at Andrey.

The boy looked at her, then at the tree standing mid-air, then he leaned so he could see the warehouse. “Oh god!” he exclaimed after realizing he made a hole in the concrete bricks.

“It’s okay, you’ll fix it in a few minutes.” the sorceress calmed him down and continued “Wanna see something cool? “ 

Speechlessly Andrey just nodded and walked to her so they wouldn’t have to speak loud to each other.

Suddenly gusts of wind at a meter distance started cutting the tree into equal proportions.

“Wow! You just cut it evenly, and furthermore, while you are holding it mid-air!”

“Yeah, it’s all about concentration and control. Now I’ll lower it to the ground and I want you to try and do that same cutting spell you did just now to make it into even planks. We’ll use them to make the stash.”

“Okay. Can you give me some advice before I cut down the whole place?”

“Hahah! Yeah, just don’t do such bursts of energy, unless you are aiming for real destruction. It’s better to do it slow and steady, rather than fast and explosive, until you learn control, at least!” Dea’n’ha explained.

“Umm… aren’t there spells which can be cast purely with words like the one you used to create the tree?” Andrey asked as he tried to find an easier and safer way about this.

“Hmm… there is, but it wouldn’t do you good. It’s best you learn how to control it on your own. Casting spells which require mantras, or simply said - words, won’t help you train your self-control. And you need that! Or … we’ll many or-s to say here.”

“Okay, so I’ll try this then. But position the tree in such a way that there’s nothing behind it!” he warned, worried he might do more unnecessary damage.

“Sure thing, Andrey!” she approved and she positioned the tree in front of them. The merchant’s house on the left and the warehouse on the right.

“Okay, great. Watch this!” Andrey said as he obviously had some new idea in mind.

I’ll try something else this time.

Andrey put his hand pointing the tree and went into the lowest part of the tree. Dea’n’ha had placed it horizontally floating on the level of Andrey’s shoulders. So he went at the bottom of it, pointed his hand, and stood there for a few seconds. Then he lowered his hand a bit and repeated this process for each one-meter log Dea’n’ha had cut. 

She smiled, realizing what he might be doing. 

Now that I have placed my mana at all different points I just have to manage to push it in a forward line and I’ll be able to cut them all down evenly and simultaneously.

Andrey went back and forth the tree length checking his measurements and doing the measure thrice, cut once check.

“Measure thrice, cut once?” Dea’n’ha asked, chuckling.

Andrey stopped walking for a second, looked at her, stared for a second, and replied “Yeah.” then continued checking.

Finally, he went into the center of the tree, pointed his hand and fingers forward, then he rose his fingers up and had the lower part of his hand face the tree.

Then he concentrated his mana to cut down the tree-logs...